


stay

by SabbyWrites



Series: with a little help from my friends [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Abstract, Emotionally Repressed, Friends With Benefits, Gen, Implied Sexual Content, Literally This Fic Makes No Sense, Resolved Romantic Tension, abuse of parentheses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-30
Updated: 2018-01-30
Packaged: 2019-03-11 10:46:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13522617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SabbyWrites/pseuds/SabbyWrites
Summary: It was supposed to be a one-time thing.





	stay

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TabsBrowser](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TabsBrowser/gifts).



> hey hello this is a largely abstract piece i wrote after having a really weird night the other night so it makes literally 0 sense, that's the POINT 
> 
> dedicated to tabs, with much love. (i'm sorry i'm dedicating this trash fire to you)

It was supposed to be a one-time thing. 

(Well, it was supposed to be a _never, ever_ thing, but Shirabu Kenjirō finds his self-control waning with each passing year after high school.)

A mistake, he’d called it. Right to your face, too, but you’d never once looked hurt by his acerbic nature. In hindsight, that’s probably the reason that he’s here right now; you can dish it out as well as you can take it, and it’d be such a bother to try and find someone else to fuck this late in his college career. 

(He tells himself that over and over again until he almost believes it.)

“Back again?” You’re standing in your doorway with your hair wet and he’s standing in the hall, gangly and awkward. The girls in the dorm next to yours are probably listening, laughing at him like Tendō always does when they pass each other on campus. Like he’s a fucking idiot for doing the shit that he does and maybe, _maybe_ he genuinely is. 

“Don’t talk. You’re hotter with your mouth shut.” He brushes past you and you laugh that fucking laugh that makes him feel like he’s made of gelatin. Like you might dig your fingers into him and rip chunks of him away and god, he’d fucking _let_ you. 

You sink to your knees while he’s deep in thought and it’s only when he feels his belt sliding free from around his waist that he snaps back to attention. 

“You sure you want me to keep my mouth shut?” You tease, looking up at him. 

“Kinda.” He says.

__

Here’s how things should have happened:

He was supposed to hardly ever talk to you. Barely acknowledge that you existed. Treat you the same way he tended to treat the other people in his classes. Maybe ask for your email if he missed a lecture, but he was rarely ever desperate enough to approach anyone outside of the university’s volleyball team. 

You talked too much, he learned during the first week. You asked stupid questions and had even stupider opinions and he hated how everyone in the class just lapped it up, like you were some sort of prodigy. He’d seen enough of those types at Shiratorizawa and he’d prepared to see them in university, but—

(But.)

Here’s how life fucked him over: 

You sit close to him in class. Too close, and you always smell so nice and you always have extensive notes, always work hard as hell to sell people on your Stupid Opinions and as hard as he tries not to, he laps it up too. 

(Your questions are generally stupid, still. Like when you see him at the party that Started Everything and you ask, with your words slightly slurred and your eyes a little bleary, if he wants to take you home.) 

And, god damn him, he does.

__

Being with you is like doing heroin, maybe. It feels so fucking good, _too_ fucking good, but then the high is over and he feels filthy, disgusting, for succumbing for the third time that week to one of your late-night texts.

Your body lays across his and he’d normally be uncomfortable with the weight but he likes it, he likes it a _lot_ , and you’re smelling so good and you’re talking about aliens and it’s so fucking stupid that he wants to scream, wants to jump out your window headfirst and crack his head open on the pavement rather than admit that he has feelings—

“Ken, are you listening?” 

Fuck you. Fuck you and the stupid nickname you gave him, the one he always tells you to never call him by. 

(He likes it a little too much. He likes when you use it in public and other guys look between the two of you as if they can’t believe someone like him has someone like you.) 

“No,” he answers truthfully. You laugh at him, say something about how he needs to be a better listener, and he shuts his eyes. 

“I don’t need to be anything. We’re fucking recreationally.” He reminds you, and he can’t see it but he knows you look so amused right now. 

“Sure,” you reply.

__

Tendō is really the only guy from the old team he talks to anymore. He wishes it wasn’t that way.

But Ushijima is off doing his Professional Volleyball thing and Semi dropped off the face of the fucking planet to go _backpacking_ in Europe like some rich American kid or something. Yamagata moved to the other side of Japan and honestly, He doesn’t give a fuck what Goshiki is doing with his life. 

So Tendō it is. 

“So you’re actually sleeping with someone? Like a real, live human?” 

“Looks like it.” Shirabu can’t seem to find quiet, even in the library. It’s Tendō’s favorite place to hang out, probably because there’s no shortage of girls that like to sit in groups and gossip at the tables around them. 

“And you’re… dating?” 

“No.” The word hurts. He wonders if it’s possible that he cut his mouth on it. He touches his cheek to be extra sure. 

Tendō pauses to admire a few girls that pass their table. “Huh. That’s weird.” 

“That I don’t want to date them?” Shirabu snorts. 

“No. That I think they’re sitting over there.” Tendō points. 

(Very conspicuously.)

And Fuck Fuck Fuck, Shirabu _turns_ and there you are. You’re wearing a turtleneck despite the heat and he wonders for a second if it’s because he gave you hickey last night, but then his eyes travel to the end of your table and—

you’re not alone. 

He turns back around. You were laughing. You looked happy. 

“Yikes.” Tendō says. “That sucks.” 

“I don’t know what you mean.” Shirabu replies. 

(Tendō, bless his heart, has enough decency to ignore the way his voice wobbles a little.)

__

He knocks on your door later. He can’t help it.

You don’t answer. One of the girls from next door pokes her head out. 

“Are you looking for [Surname]?”

(Is he?)

“Yeah.” 

“They’re out right now. Do you need something?” 

(Does he?)

“No.”

( _Yes._ )

__

“Can I ask you something?”

“I’d prefer if you didn’t.” 

Your body is a distraction, even when he’s completely spent. You’re resting your head on his chest this time and he wants to tell you to move, but then he’s afraid you actually might. 

“Such a downer, Ken.” 

“Stop calling me that.” 

“Do you like me?” 

He pauses. “Well enough, yes.” 

“That’s not what I meant.” You move (Fuck!) but it’s only so you can prop yourself up on your elbows and stare at him. Your hair is all sorts of fucked up from when he pulled it and yanked it and god damn him if you don’t look like the most perfect, wonderful thing in the world right now. 

“Oh.” He says. 

“What I _meant_ ,” you start, “was… do you like-like me?” 

“I like you well enough to sleep with you.” 

“But that’s an entire spectrum of liking someone.” 

“So it is.” He replies, and then he rolls over on his side, away from you. Your eyes stare holes into his back. It strikes him for the first time that he might be hurting you. 

“Am I wasting my time?” 

(Yes.)

__

The next time he fucks you— he stopped counting how many times its happened, so it’s always just _’the next time’_ — it’s in his dorm and you’re riding him and saying filthy things into his ears and he’s just taking it all in, looking at you as if he’s not sure if he wants to pull you close or yank you off of him.

(You look really nice when you orgasm. Really, really nice. So Fucking Nice, it’s like he wants it tattooed on the inside of his eyelids.) 

But then it’s over and you’re laying next to him again, drawing shapes on his chest with your fingers and then, and then, and then—

“You should go home.” He says. 

“But I’m tired.” Your excuse is weak. 

“I don’t care.” 

“You don’t want me to stay?” 

He looks over at you and you look over at him and your eyes meet like two puzzle pieces. 

“No.” 

(The lie burns his throat.)

__

You don’t talk to him for a week.

He brushes it off as finals getting to you. You’re a hard worker, the type that squirrels themselves away to study and perfect things, the type that wants to do the best, _be_ the best, and god it hurts him because you are, you _are_ the best and you never seem to feel like you are, despite your facade. 

(Since when did he think this about you?)

…

(Since always.)

He knocks on your door on the seventh day. Finals should be over. You should be talking to him. 

“You just missed them.” The girl next door pokes her head out again. He resists the urge to shove her back into her room. 

“Where—“

“Home for the semester. Should be at the train station right now.” 

So Shirabu turns on his heel and he runs, runs like a fucking idiot, runs like how he used to in high school when his team would lose scrimmages, runs like the absolute imbecile in love that he is, and then he stops. 

The station is twenty minutes away. He doesn’t have a fucking car. 

So he sits down on a bench and he stares at the ground.

__

You don’t have class together anymore. The guy who sits next to him in his new class smells like stale air freshener and he chews his gum too loudly and his ideas are even dumber than yours because he doesn’t actually try.

(Neither does Shirabu. He doesn’t try when it counts.)

__

Does it count now?

He knocks on your door. It takes a minute for you to answer. 

“Yeah?” 

He hates the way your voice sounds right now. Flat. Unamused. 

“Hello.” 

You go to shut your door again. He shoves his hand in between the frame and the door but it’s a little late. It comes down hard on his hand. 

He’s going to be setting funny for the next few days, but he can hardly feel it in the moment. 

“Jesus.” You say, letting the door fall open, staring at him like he’s suddenly some sort of idiot.

(He’s been an idiot the whole time.)

“I want to stay.” 

“...what?” 

I said,” he clears his throat, “I want to stay. And I want you to stay. I want us both to stay.” 

“Are you feeling alright?” 

You’re not joking. That’s real concern in your voice. 

“No, I’m not.” He says, “I haven’t been okay in a long time. Ever, really.” 

“And this has to do with me because—”

“I’m not okay when I’m with you. I don’t like the way you make me feel. I'm not used to it. But sometimes, when I… sometimes, when I close my eyes, and you’re right there, I feel like things _could_ be okay.”

“That’s a big burden to put on me.” You cross your arms. 

(He knows.)

But it’s a burden, he finds, that you don’t mind carrying.


End file.
